Management of Commercially Generated Radioactive Waste - U.S. ...

FPF: Fuel packaging facility.
8.5
Fracture: breaks in rocks caused by intense folding or faulting or the process of breaking
fluid-bearing strata by injecting a fluid under such pressure as to cause partings in the
rock.
Freshwater Lens: A body of fresh water roughly shaped like a lens formed as a result of
injecting freshwater into a salt water body or occurring naturally when precipitation
infiltrates a saline aquifer.
Fuel (nuclear reactor): Fissionable material used as the source of power when placed in a
critical arrangement in a nuclear reactor.
Fuel Cycle: Mining, refining, enrichment, and fabrication of fuel elements, use in a
reactor, chemical processing to recover the fissionable material remaining in the spent
fuel, reenrichment of the fuel material, refabrication of new fuel elements, and management
of radioactive waste.
Fuel Element: A tube, rod, or other form into which fissionable material is fabricated for
use in a reactor.
Fuel Reprocessing Plant (FRP): Plant where irradiated fuel elements are dissolved, waste
materials removed, and reusable materials are segregated for reuse.
Fuel Residue Waste (FRW): Solid wastes consisting of the residue (fuel element hardware and
chopped cladding material) after the bulk of fuel core material, including most of the
actinides and fission products, has been dissolved in nitric acid.
Gamma Ray: Electromagnetic radiation, similar in nature to x-rays, emitted by the nuclei
of some radioactive substances during radioactive decay.
GEIS: Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
Geohydrology: The study of the character, source, and mode of occurrence of underground
water.
Geothermal: Pertaining to the heat of the interior of the earth.
Geothermal Gradient: The increasing temperature of the earth with depth.
GESMO: Generic Environmental Impact Statement on use of Mixed-Oxide fuel in LWRs.
Granitic: Of or pertaining to granite. Granite-like.
Granitoid: A textural term indicating grain size and mineral distribution typical of
granite.
Ground Water: Water that exists or flows within the zone of saturation beneath the land
surface.
Grout: A mortar fluid combined with liquid waste to provide a matrix for isolation of the
waste and to seal the waste from the environment.
GWe: Gigawatts (billions of watts) of electrical generation; a rate of energy production.
Gyre: A large closed ringlike system of ocean currents which rotates in a circular motion
in each of the major ocean basins.
Half-Life: a) physical--the time required for quantity of a radioactive substance to decay
to one-half of its original quantity. b) biological--time required for half of an
ingested or inhaled substance to be eliminated from the body by natural process.
c) effective--time required for half of an ingested or inhaled radioactive substance to
be eliminated from the body by the combination of radioactive decay and natural processes;
mathematically equal to product of the physical and biological half-lives divided by the
sum of the physical and biological half-lives.